Win7 laptop HD asking to format when ext plugged to XP box

[EagleEyedOne]

Hi,
Have an Acer laptop with Win7 OS and Western Digital HD. Win7 OS seems to be pooched on Acer box. Removed HD and installed to 2.5 enclosure to recover files. Connected to XP OS and Win Explorer shows "SYSTEM RESERVED (E: )" with sub directories Boot, Sys Vol Info, and Local Disk (F: ). Clicking on any of these directories returns a result of "The disk in drive F is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?" Also tried connecting HD/enclosure to Win7 desktop with same result.

Surely don't want to format it. Is there a way to recognize Win7 data on an XP box using the enclosure connection?

 

[phil22]

Shouldn't be any problem reading the drive on an XP machine provided that XP is running on an NTFS filing-system, not FAT32.

If that isn't the issue, the drive may have failed. Test it with WD Data LifeGuard Diagnostic for Windows while it's connected to another PC: http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?lang=en

 

[fzabkar]

Could we see the partition table and boot sector(s) with Microsoft's Sector Inspector?
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/SecInspect.zip

If you extract the above archive to the one folder and execute the SIrun.bat file, then this will generate a report file named SIout.txt.

 

[EagleEyedOne]

Thanks for the link to the WD tool! The drive is definitely pooched. "Too many bad sectors to complete test..." Let the extended test run for nearly 30 hours on the second try. Then tried extended test on another good WD drive and passed in 40 minutes. Appreciate the help. Already ordered a replacement.